The role of relationships and creative learning approaches in supporting the learning of girls with a label of behavioural, emotional and social difficulties within one special education provision

Abstract

Girls are expected to perform in certain ways in education and to become educational successes. However, there are girls who contravene this norm and become labelled as having the specific special educational needs of behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD). They experience episodes of school exclusion and may be excluded from mainstream education altogether. The perspectives of these girls is largely missing from the literature. This thesis seeks to address this gap, representing findings from a two-year ethnographic research project undertaken at Kahlo, a specialist school for excluded girls. The school acted as a site from which to explore – with the aid of concepts from Bakhtin - the complexity of re-engaging girls with a label of BESD in learning. Focusing specifically on the stories of two of the students the thesis reports and reflects on data generated using methods designed to improve participation in research, including digital, visual and multimedia accounts from students and staff. Aspects of sensory ethnography enhanced understanding within the guiding themes of relationships and creative approaches to learning.

Data generated from and with regards to the two students are included alongside the information from the material and discursive collage at Kahlo. The data emphasise how the flexibility associated with creative approaches to learning at Kahlo provided a personalised approach to learning in which the learner biography could be centred, supporting student engagement with learning activities. In this model of learning, relationships between staff and students shifted with a greater distribution of power and responsibility to the student. The desire for teachers to promote authentic interactions with students appeared more important than the methods used with regards to such in the classroom, although the affordances of the range of methodological approaches included in the research are discussed. The spaces opened up for student expression and communication of a range of identity performances enabled students to experience feeling cared for, and to subsequently reciprocate caring to staff and with regards to their learning activities.

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ORCID for Sarah Parsons: orcid.org/0000-0002-2542-4745

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